In today's global market, goods are conveyed internationally and their safe delivery and storage is important to the many parties involved. In particular, it is important to guard against theft and misdirection, or at least to provide a deterrent to unauthorized or illegal activity involving the goods. Besides the conveyance of goods, it is also often desired to secure items of value even during storage. Devices exist that are intended to serve the above functions. However, many are either prohibitively costly, or easily tampered with. There is thus a need to provide a secure and cost effective security device and security system that can be operated easily and requiring minimal reconfiguration or retrofitting of additional components to the conveyance vehicles in order to keep items secure and to track the location and status of items along the entire chain of custody including during storage of the items.